


An Ache

by byjosten



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arson, Depression, Exy (All For The Game), Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt Neil Josten, Kissing, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Mutual Pining, POV Neil Josten, Pining, Protective Andrew Minyard, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, andriel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byjosten/pseuds/byjosten
Summary: "He’d still been in uniform when an ambulance had arrived.Had still been in his uniform twelve hours later in his dorm, staring out of the window, the words echoing in his head.He had still been in his uniform when he’d smashed his fist into the wall until his knuckles cracked. He wasn’t a violent person but the anger, the rage, the pressure of tears unshed and sadness cresting, had been too much to not vent out. His fist had pummelled the wall until the boy with the racquet had found him sobbing on the floor.“Hey,” he’d said. “Hey.” His eyes had fallen on Neil, still in his uniform. “Take that off.”“It’s mine,” Neil had said defensively.“I mean to change into something more comfortable.”But Neil didn’t want to. He’d earned the orange and white uniform—had earned the number on the back of his jersey, had earned his printed surname on everything he owned to do with Exy. Taking it off meant admitting defeat. Once he took it off he wouldn’t put it back on. He would have no reason to ever wear it again.“No,” he said.“No?”“No.” "
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 37
Kudos: 138





	1. He Tried

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this is heavy stuff!
> 
> There is heavy mention of suicide, suicidal attempt, depression episodes, alcohol-dependency, arson attempts, burns. Please read all of these as trigger warnings.

He didn’t know it but he had been in an induced coma for two weeks.

He didn’t know it but there were whispers that he wouldn’t make it.

What he did know was that _had he known_ , he would have told them he didn’t want to make it.

Waking up was slow, the phantom sensation of pain that he remembered experiencing before arms had pulled him out of the fire. The fire he had started—the fire that had meant to kill him and every single memory he had. The medication was strong; it made him forget about he burns, the shattered bones, the pain that had always knitted his body together. Pain had always made him stronger but this month it had made him weaker. It had broken him down until all he saw was a flickering lighter and the end of his life.

“Neil?” It was a voice he didn’t recognise but it worked to peel his eyes open. It sent signals to his brain that he tried not to respond to. After being lost for so long, his name being spoken breathed something back into him. It hurt but _it was something_. It reminded him that he was corporeal; he wasn’t a shell, a ghost, living in a place he had no right to be in any longer. “Neil Josten.”

He tried to respond but all he could manage was a groan through a torn throat. Whether it was from the burns or the screaming he hadn’t known. Neil was no stranger to fire, to his body tested to physical limits others didn’t even know existed, so why had he screamed? Why had he done that? If there was one thing he had always been good at it was keeping quiet when turmoil destroyed him from the inside out. He was good at keeping quiet about what hurt.

But his eyes opened and he knew he had failed. He was still alive. The ache was still there. It was an ache that had rooted deep in his chest a month ago, an ache of loss, the absence of something being ripped so instantly from his life. That something had given him meaning again. It had breathed life into everything Neil Josten was.

“Neil, you’re in the hospital.” The person who spoke to him was a doctor, the sight sending his heart into an irregular rhythm that beat so hard he thought he’d vomit. “You have been in an induced coma for two weeks. The burns you suffered were major injuries but your body needed time to heal.”

 _What about my mind?_ He wanted to beg. _What do you have that can heal that? I’ve had more time than I want but that still hurts._ He couldn’t think past that ache. The fire should have taken it away. His whole body moved around it, centred by it.

It had been there when he had woken up every morning, no longer caring what time it was.

It had been there when he’d finally allowed his body to sleep only because he had seen white and nearly passed out.

It had been there through missed meals, through every cigarette, through every walk he had forced himself to go on in a bid to pretend like he was doing okay.

He wasn’t— _he wasn’t_.

“Neil, can you tell me what happened?”

He managed to shake his head. He couldn’t manage words and even if he could he didn’t want to speak. Talking hurt—talking wouldn’t help. The only thing that could help was being back where he belonged but that was gone. The one thing that had given him purpose was _gone_.

“Can you tell me if this was an attempt on your own life?”

What would happen if he said yes?”

“Do you smoke, Neil?”

He nodded.

"Was this a smoke break gone wrong?”

He shook his head.

Again, the question came, “Were you trying to hurt yourself?”

Neil nodded. Nothing flickered in the doctor’s eyes; no disappointment, no resignation to the attempt or the danger he’d landed himself in rather than die. All he did was write something down.

“A nurse will be in to perform observations and change your dressings.”

His fingers were tightly bandaged, white strips winding up his arms, but none on his face or neck. He couldn’t remember why.

He remembered the fire in flashing snippets. The flame catching the curtains, Neil leaning in to light his cigarette, watching the fire lick up the material. It had caught his bed sheets next, then the rug on the floor, then his books. Once he’d finished the cigarette, Neil had placed his helmet on and laid back, closed his eyes, and waited.

He barely remembered the screams of his name, the fingers digging into his shoulders; he remembered looking out at the burning room through the helmet grate. He remembered being in enough pain that it could mean he had succeeded.

He remembered a voice in his ear. _Fucking idiot—you fucking—_

He remembered wanting to be in that room on fire, so he’d clawed free, had screamed to be let go, once he realised that those fingers with their death grip had meant to save him. Neil remembered ramming his head back into someone’s face, the grip going lose.

The helmet had protected him from the flames but the smoke had found a way in. It had choked him first. It had poured into his lungs, climbed up his throat, until he’d coughed, collapsing onto the floor even as he laughed and smiled because _it was working._

Then his uniform had caught fire.

And Neil Josten had caught fire.

*

Neil Josten had spent his life hiding, running, a constant game of pretending to be someone else to escape a past that never stopped haunting him. Sometimes his past dulled to a whisper and became a thing he didn’t have to worry about when he fell asleep, but other times it jolted him awake in cold sweats. Sometimes it climbed up his bedroom walls—many times it had a voice that whispered a different name even as his new one rang out true and real.

Palmetto State University hadn’t been a reality until it had slammed into him—literally. He knew he’d stopped running the second a racquet had smashed into him like a hurdle to trip him up, flooring him. But for those few seconds he’d been floored—that’s all Neil had needed to stop. That’s all his life had needed to take a different turn. That racquet with it’s attempt to slam his organs into the opposite wall had saved his life. Had it not happened Neil would have continued running.

Wielding it had been _the boy_ who had saved him. A boy who had grasped Neil, listened to him, told him to stop running, _protected him_. A boy who had given Neil a world when he’d never asked for it.

Behind the boy and his racquet had stood a team.

Back then the ache Neil felt had only been a hole he didn’t know existed. A hole in his chest that had been filled with each player on the Exy team that had begrudgingly welcomed him. Some days that hole had been filled with anger and frustration but other times it had been filled with light and euphoria and emotional highs. That’s what Neil had grown used to.

The Foxes had shown him what he could have when he stopped running, when he stopped being afraid. All of them had seen him on face value, had looked him in the eye, and accepted him. To them he was just a player; he was just Neil Josten. He hadn’t only been components of his past and pain. He was everything the court had made him.

Neil Josten had been forged from late nights and early mornings with the Foxes; he had been formed from laughter, from losses and wins, from holding an Exy racquet that fit perfectly in his hands, from knitting together every loose thread the team already had.

Without realising it, Neil had found a place on that team, amongst people he shouldn’t have ever gotten on with _but did_. They loved him as fiercely as he loved them. And Exy—it was a new life to call his. It showed him that he could run and be successful. He could run and be useful, helpful.

There, Neil Josten had possessed a purpose, a place, _a uniform._ Everything had marked him as one of them. The Foxes hadn’t just been a team. They had been a family. A group of people he had fought to stay with, hadn’t thought himself capable of staying with but still had because they had told him to stay. They had _wanted him._

But then the accident had happened. Neil hadn’t seen it coming. He should have—good things never lasted. He knew complacency was a killer but Exy had lulled his fear into growing dormant. Neil had believed it could last. His team had helped that. But he should have realised something would shatter the perfect reality he got to wake up to every morning.

_Shatter._

In it’s most simple form that’s what had happened.

If someone was to ask Neil what had happened that day—the day that had yanked his security, happiness, and life from beneath him, he couldn’t answer. Not properly. All he remembered was that ache.

It had been a normal Saturday, practice planned for three hours at five in the evening just before it go too dark. Neil had been practicing drills, a machine shooting balls at him to practice his technique, to practice running from one end of the court to the other. He’d been angling his shots at other players, working with them to pass.

But he’d gone too wide on one ball and misjudged. His arm had shot out; he hadn’t realised how close he was to the wall bordering the court.

He hadn’t registered the shattered bones until he’d shook himself off and went to play again.

It was only then that he had realised the pain, the _wrongness_ of what had happened, his knees buckling. The bones of his right hand, shattered, rendered useless in the space of a second. He’d still been in uniform when an ambulance had arrived.

Had still been in his uniform twelve hours later in his dorm, staring out of the window, the words echoing in his head. _Neil, you won’t be able to play anymore. I’m sorry._

He had still been in his uniform when he’d smashed his fist into the wall until his knuckles cracked. He wasn’t a violent person but the anger, the _rage_ , the pressure of tears unshed and sadness cresting, had been too much to not vent out. His fist had pummelled the wall until the boy with the racquet had found him sobbing on the floor.

“Hey,” he’d said. “ _Hey_.” His eyes had fallen on Neil, still in his uniform. “Take that off.”

“It’s mine,” Neil had said defensively.

“I mean to change into something more comfortable.”

But Neil didn’t want to. He’d earned the orange and white uniform—had earned the number on the back of his jersey, had _earned_ his printed surname on everything he owned to do with Exy. Taking it off meant admitting defeat. Once he took it off he wouldn’t put it back on. He would have no reason to ever wear it again.

“No,” he said.

“No?”

“ _No_.”

“Okay.” He’d slipped his hands into his pockets, hesitantly sitting next to Neil on the bed. “You might still heal. Kevin—”

“Kevin had his hand shattered. Mine is my whole arm. I try to play with my other hand but my arm still feels the pressure. It—I—” He couldn’t say the words: that he might never play again. He could work with his other hand but not now. Not when the Foxes were clinging onto the league by the skin of their teeth. Neil couldn’t afford to practice with his other hand. There was no time. It was months until the season was over.

_Months._

It crashed into him with all the weight he never thought he’d had to feel in this situation. He hadn’t thought he would lose the team that had been family. He hadn’t thought he was lose his new purpose. Especially not to due to his own fault.

When Neil rammed his fist into the wall again, he was yanked back, a growl of, “You want to fucking break your good hand too? Then you’ll have _no chance_.”

But Neil couldn’t stop, even as blood smeared the walls, even as his knuckles split and stung, even as he choked on tears that still would not come. Anything was better than this—the ache that had already begun, the knowing that he had already lost.

In the end, he knocked his head to the wall, closing his eyes as he inhaled deeply.

Tomorrow, the Foxes were travelling four hours north for an away game. Neil wouldn’t be going with them.

“Neil.”

The name was a reminder that he no longer wanted.

“ _Neil._ ”

“What?” he snapped.

“Get changed.”

Neil turned to the boy who had done this—who had forced him to stop and consider the home Palmetto had given him. He only fell to his knees and pressed his face into his bedsheets. A hand smoothed over his neck, lips pressing to the top of his head.

When he woke he was still in his uniform. He hadn’t gotten changed. He woke up on the day of the game and got out of bed, preparing to join his team before his arm tugged when he moved. Neil let out a torn moan.

Grasping the phone he’d been gifted, he checked the time. The Foxes would have already left.

Neil hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.

The thought had him falling, slipping into a place he was all too familiar with, as he dropped back onto his bed.

*

Neil remembered the way fingers had dug into his cheeks, turning it to study the burn mark on his cheek. He wanted hands to grasp him now, to assess his burns. He wished for Abby, with her bandages and calming words. He’d refuse her but it was the _presence_ he missed. He wished for the Foxes’ mouths to open because it meant they would be there—they would see them.

_Why don’t you go to see them?_

But Neil had never known a Fox to socialise outside of classes or practice. They had never seen other friends because time had been short. Neil didn’t have that easy route of already being there. They didn’t have to make any extra time to see him then.

The fire had burned so much of his skin but it had left the ache. It hadn’t burned away the very thing he’d tried to incinerate. Neil stared out at the opposite wall, remembering the way his uniform had caught fire still on him. If he was going to die he wanted to die in the only thing that had ever meant something to him.

“Neil?”

His name was spoken several times more. “Neil, I’m here to discharge you.”

Except it wasn’t a discharge—not really. He was merely going from one hospital—that fixed his body—to another, that would fix his mind. But none would fix the gaping hole in his chest, the one that had been filled with his teammates and the meaning of being part of a team.

*

Neil had never been a drinker. Alcohol made him unreliable. His tongue came loose but he never knew his own limits. He would never risk a hangover the next day because that would inhibit him from functioning properly. But after the accident to his arm, Neil had drank until the room blurred and he’d hurled into the toilet—then he’d drank more.

It hadn’t mattered because there was nothing to be sober for, no one to talk to, no plans to be presentable for. So Neil had drank because it had snatched away that ache. He drank until the Foxes faces faded in his mind—he drank until he forgot how it felt to be on a court, to hold a racquet and sprint.

But one face never left his mind. One face was stubborn, as was the boy the face belonged to. Neil could have gone to them but the ache in his chest weighed him down; it anchored him to his room, only allowing him to walk to the store and back, alcohol in his bag. It allowed him to go to the rooftop and smoke, hoping that someone else would be there but they never were.

So Neil fell apart in his room and nobody knew.

He’d fallen apart until he couldn’t bear it anymore. He couldn’t cope with drinking to think better—so he had started the fire, the thing he knew could destroy everything. Yet it hadn’t destroyed _him._

They put Neil in psychiatric care where a nurse checked his bandages, asked him questions, and filled out a sheet. He nodded when he was supposed to, ate when they asked him, but he never talked. Some days when he felt stronger he would sprint in the field outside of the ward. But running hurt—running reminded him of everything he had stopped running for, and Neil always ended up in a heap, screaming into his ruined hands, remembering too much.

Too much.

Flashes of smiles, of listening to Allison’s music taste, of finding solace in Matt’s music taste, of seeing their goalkeeper smoke and the way he knew Neil liked watching him. He liked how smoking gave them a break they needed sometimes. He remembered changing in the locker room with the others, remembered Kevin’s tutelage, Dan’s care, Nicky’s unwavering loyalty—his determination at the very start for Neil to find his place. He remembered Aaron’s reluctance to like him but how he was one hell of a player. He remembered Renee’s positivity and dedication to her sport, and Seth’s anger put into his playing that had carried them through so many practices.

He remembered it all—and it _hurt_.

It hurt until Neil clawed at his chest, clawed at his arms, clawed at anything just to focus his brain on something else.

They called nurses on him so many times, put him under sedation when he tried to fight them, and when he apologised because _he wasn’t violent, he was just hurting so much it was unbearable and “take it away, please just take it away”,_ Neil wondered what else he would give up. He’d given up his life just to forget it all—the dynamic that had saved him.

When they discharged Neil Josten from the ward, he was… _Better._

He wasn’t fixed or whole but he could recall Exy and the Foxes without tumbling into a freefall of a breakdown. He didn’t want to end his life when he thought about having lost them.

Neil’s plan was to get a bus back to the university. He had already received word that the fire had been contained before it could spread. They called it a _freak accident_ , and Neil wasn’t sure if he’d have any bills to pay for the damage he’d done. But the medication the ward had pumped into him made him think less about that and more about how the concrete felt beneath his shoes.

When he left, a car pulled up to where he stood, a window rolling down. Neil’s heart crumbled to ash, his knees buckling but he gripped onto the edge of the car door to steady himself.

“Nicky,” he choked out.

The Minyards’ cousin knocked down his sunglasses, lifted a brow and said, “Hop in, Neil.”

Neil felt like he’d never moved faster in his life. Once he was in, he flung his arms around Nicky, wincing at the strain in his arm from his injury a month ago. He still couldn’t use it properly, not to write or to hold a racquet. But he endured the pain to hug his former teammate, to feel the jacket beneath his fingers and know that Nicky had cared enough to drive here.

“I—We—None of us knew. Neil, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Nicky’s head buried into his shoulder, as Neil pressed his face into Nicky’s shoulder.

He wanted to assure him it was fine—that was his thing. He had to convince everyone he was fine. It was how he lived without notice. But it wasn’t fine. Neil had tried to kill himself from the loss of the very thing that had meant everything to him. It wasn’t fine. _He_ wasn’t fine, not without them.

“Let me—let me take you somewhere. Anywhere. Are you hungry?” Nicky pulled back, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand.

Neil nodded. Nicky didn’t ask where he wanted to eat. He just slammed the car into gear and pulled off from the side of the road. Nicky was never one for a lack of words. He filled silences; he dispersed tense situations with kind words or encouragement. But now it seemed he didn’t know what to say. Neither did Neil.

The burger place he took Neil to wasn’t far. Neil slumped down onto one of the benches outside whilst Nicky ordered for them. He wanted to say everything he’d stored up in him over the past month. _I miss you. Did you miss me? Did you look at my place on the court and remember me? Did I mean enough to you all to be remembered? Why are you here? How did you find out?_

And the one he would never dare voice: _why did none of you message me?_

Because Neil felt insecure to ask that—and he knew the reason. The Foxes had classes, practice, games, their own shit to deal with. No matter how many players had meant something in the past he’d never known their names. Nobody remembered the Foxes who left.

Yet here Nicky was.

He sat down and said, “Tell me what happened.”

Neil shook his head. He wouldn’t do that to any of them. He wouldn’t tell Nicky his pathetic story of wasting away in his room, killing himself from the inside out, hating living that way because his prerogative had always been _move, run, move, run_. Standing still had been a liability—until Palmetto.

“Tell me about the team,” he rasped out. Nicky shoved a bottle of water towards him. “How are—how is everything?” His throat was tight. Neil wasn’t even sure if he could endure hearing about them but it was a torturous question, a need to know.

“Allison and Renee finally had the realisation that they’re more than just friends,” Nicky said, starting easy. “We all knew before them, of course.”

“Renee knew,” Neil mumbled.

“Of course, but she wouldn’t push Allison towards something she wasn’t sure about. Kevin is… He’s drinking less, coping better. Aaron took Katelyn on holiday for spring break.”

Neil’s chest tightened. He should have celebrated that with them. He’d missed that—missed _everything_.

“And Andrew, he—”

Neil choked on a heave, Nicky’s words fading out.

_Andrew._

The name cut through him, hotter than the fire that had scorched his skin. The name had stood for so much: instilled fear in some, inspiration in others; anger in most. It was the name of one of the Foxes goalkeeper whom Neil had never said he loved. He’d never said that word, not because he was scared to say it to Andrew, but because he was scared to sau it _at all._ The omitting had never been anything to do with the other boy but Andrew had known. He had to have known Neil’s feelings. Every time Andrew had changed the music to something Neil liked, Neil knew it was because he needed comfort, a distraction. He had never said anything, just raised a brow at Neil’s questioning look.

Every time Andrew had brushed by him, Neil had held his breath, always wondering what could happen if they both reached out a little further.

Every time Andrew had called him by his name, it had solidified Neil into a more real person. More than a boy who ran from his past. First and foremost Andrew had made Neil Josten real.

And his heart broke for that loss.

For every loss he could count.

“Nicky,” he choked out, interrupting his former teammate. “Nicky, I’m—” But he didn’t finish before Nicky had wrapped his arms around Neil, gripping him in a tight hug, harder than the one in the car.

“It’s okay,” Nicky said. “It’s okay, Neil.”

Yet it wasn’t. _It wasn’t_. Without them, Neil had no life, no purpose. It wouldn’t be the same anymore—nothing would. Even this wasn’t the same, sharing food and a drink with Nicky. It wasn’t being in their uniform to show their team status and comradery; it wasn’t doing what they did best, or complaining about the aches from that day’s practice.

Neil was a friend now, no longer a teammate.

That hurt him more than the goddamned fire did.

“Hey, listen to me.” Nicky said, pulling away. “You’ve survived much worse and still walked onto an Exy court. You’ll get better, Neil. You can rejoin next season. You’re not done with the Foxes; it’s just more of… a break, until you’re able to play again.”

He couldn’t help wonder if that was a sweet lie, or if it was true—would he be replaced in the meantime? He wanted to believe he’d go back there, he would wear that uniform again, but he didn’t know. He’d shattered his arm. Strength and agility was everything and he’d lost that.

“I miss it,” he whispered. “I miss you all, I miss playing, I miss walking into practices, walking onto the court, knowing I was a part of something.” He sounded so vulnerable but after burying those confessions it felt good to talk about them.

“This won’t be the end,” Nicky told him. “I promise. It won’t be the end. It’s not the same without you. Media duty is much more boring, for one.”

Neil tried to laugh but it _hurt_. The ache in his chest grew.

And as they ate together, it wasn’t until they had finished that Nicky said, “It was Andrew, you know?”

Neil blinked at him, water bottle halfway to his mouth.

“He was the one who tried to get you out of the fire.”

“Is he okay?”

“After you pushed him off and he nearly watched you try to kill yourself? Not really, but he’s surviving. He doesn’t know how to come see you. He’s waiting for you to go to him.”

Andrew wouldn’t intervene with Neil on something so personal like that—he had known the fragility of situations like Neil’s, and knew that healing took time. The strength to go back to the very thing breaking Neil was slippery. The truth was Neil wasn’t sure he could look at Andrew without spilling about every feeling he’d had for him since joining the Foxes.

“Go to him, Neil,” Nicky said softly.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Neil shook his head. It had to be done alone. He couldn’t keep relying on everyone else to save him. At some point he had to save himself, even if there wasn’t a lot left to save.

“I’ll—I’ll go. Can you—”

Nicky just nodded as they stood up. The drive back to the university was excruciating, Neil trying not to break as they got nearer, tried to process how Andrew had risked himself to try to save Neil.

His throat closed up when Nicky pulled up and parked.

“You know where he is,” Nicky said, jerking his head at the rooftop. So many times Neil had been up there, hoping to glimpse blonde hair at the edge, waiting for him. He took a deep breath, anxiety kicking his stomach about.

Slowly, he got out, thanking Nicky, and went inside. The ascent was hesitant, painful, a reminder of each time he’d come up these stairs with the team. The very first time he had been shown to his room. That ache grew and grew until Neil couldn’t breathe.

It led him up to the roof, until his hand pressed against the door. He squeezed his eyes shut, then pushed it open.

Andrew turned around—and Neil’s heart broke.


	2. Second Chances Are Fleeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> please note: content of overdosing, suicide attempt, forced vomiting, intrusion of privacy

“Neil, I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.” Andrew’s voice cut through Neil’s hungover haze, coaxing a groan from his throat. The light burned his eyes, both sleep-deprivation and his hangover making them dry and aching.

Last night… Last night had been _bliss._ He had finally drank enough to not feel that ache in his chest. He had told Andrew but Andrew had only shaken his head.

“What?” Neil asked. “You’re hardly one to talk about bad coping mechanisms and self care.”

Andrew gestured to Neil’s arm. “I always had a goal. I never sabotaged myself simply because my life was an empty well of nothing.”

Neil wanted to mutter that that wasn’t fair. Andrew was notorious for his bad habits—why was Neil suddenly being judged?

He looked into Andrew’s eyes, his fingers grasping his bed sheets. “Last night was the first night in over two months that I have felt anything that didn’t make me want to die.” The words had the desired effect on Andrew. His gaze shuttered, his mouth twitched, like he wasn’t sure what to say. There was such casualness to Neil’s tone—a tone that he purposefully adopted so nobody would talk about it with him, so it wouldn’t turn into a conversation where he had to answer questions.

“So can I just keep that?” Neil questioned.

“When Aaron was in your place,” Andrew said quietly, “I locked him in a bathroom until he got the worst of his withdrawal out of his system.”

Neil stared at Andrew. “You want to do the same to me? Go ahead, do it. I have nothing left to lose.”

The words were weighed but they both knew he was lying. He always lied.

 _I’mfineI’mfineI’mfine._ He wasn’t fine. He was falling apart, breaking into a million tiny pieces that Andrew would never hope to find to put him back together. He could search but too much had broken off and disappeared. Unless he was back on that court, back in his uniform, playing like everyone knew Neil Josten could, he would not be whole. Andrew’s hero mission was pointless.

But he didn’t shove him towards the bathroom. He only snarled, grasped the back of Neil’s hair, to drag his mouth down. The kiss said _I hate you for doing this._ It said _why won’t you let me help you?_ And Neil responded with _there is nothing you can do._ And _I want you to stop trying._

Andrew was all anger in the kiss; Neil was all helplessness. It was curled fingers into t-shirts, and Neil cringing at the tugging of his hair because it worsened his headache but he liked the fierceness that Andrew handled him with. He didn’t want to feel breakable and weak—he wanted to feel real. Andrew made him feel real. He always had done. He kissed back harder, a more desperate plea to get Andrew to stop helping him.

He wasn’t a lost cause, he was just _done._

But Andrew wouldn’t let that happen. The harder Neil pushed away the harder Andrew held on. He wouldn’t let Neil fall away, not again. Not after last time.

“Let me help you.” Andrew murmured the words against Neil’s jaw.

“Stop trying,” Neil answered. He was pushed back to his bed, one hand splayed over his chest. Hands that got to hold an Exy racquet every day. Eyes that got to see his team. Legs that carried him onto a court. Andrew got it all. He got everything Neil wanted.

“I did not make you promises just to break them,” Andrew said.

“I don’t need protecting.”

“Yes you do. You need protecting from yourself.”

Then his mouth was back on Neil’s, kissing away any retort. Neil only wanted Andrew to stop trying because _he_ didn’t know how to stop self-sabotaging. He didn’t know how to make himself sleep earlier at night so he wouldn’t lose hours. He didn’t know how to not down more alcohol to numb every bad feeling because he could no longer process them healthily. He was consumed by this desire to wreck his body the same way his mind was wrecked. It had all helped to fill that void leaving the Foxes had carved in him. If that went away he would have nothing.

Neil should have been able to cope with having nothing but not when it concerned Exy.

Andrew kissed his chest, right over his beating heart. “I won’t watch you do this to yourself.” He met Neil’s gaze. “Will you let me help you?”

And once again, Neil managed, “Stop trying.”

But he didn’t know that persisting that request meant Andrew would pull back, leaving cold air in his wake, and leave Neil’s room. He slammed the door shut so hard behind him that Neil’s old racquet fell onto the floor from where it propped against the wall. If he was waiting for Neil to accept help then he would be waiting a long, long time.

*

Another month passed by. A month in which Neil attempted to make plans with Nicky—which ultimately fell through. A month in which he chased away sadness with more spirits—which ultimately made the room spin and he decided he hated that. A month in which he barely spoke to Andrew—but that was okay because he was too broken for that. If Andrew got closer he would hurt himself. There was nothing he could do for Neil, and nothing Neil cared to do for himself.

A week later he had made the decision.

This time it wouldn’t be fire.

It wouldn’t so explosive, so outward, so distracting.

This time it would be quiet, unknown. With nobody to pull him away Neil would have a better chance.

He barely registered scooping up the boxes of medication that the hospital had prescribed him upon his release. He hadn’t touched them. They were supposed to calm his outward bursts of panic and anger. They were supposed to calm his heart rate, reduce his sweats, stop his shaking hands. But that was what kept him alive. That was what had reminded Neil Josten he was alive all these weeks.

He eyed them now, tipping out the packets. Sixteen lay to a packet.

He had eighty tablets in total.

Even if he didn’t take all of them, there wasn’t a chance that it couldn’t not work.

These were designed to slow down his heart—even ten could be lethal. Neil popped out twenty, lay on his bed, stuffing the rest of the medication beneath his mattress, and arranged the twenty pills in neat rows. He grabbed the remaining glass worth of alcohol he had left and swirled it in the bottle. He unscrewed it, picked up a pill, and began his descent.

It couldn’t matter—Exy, the team, Nicky’s kindness, Andrew’s love. That’s what he told himself. If it didn’t matter then he wouldn’t miss it. Because if he missed it that meant he had to stay to fight. Neil was exhausted from fighting, from missing, from living around the ache in his soul.

One by one, he swallowed the medication, until his vision blurred and he couldn’t feel his legs.

His heart was slower in his chest. The beta blockers got to work immediately—that was their purpose. They made everything perfectly lethal. He didn’t remember grabbing his phone. He couldn’t even see the pictures on there clearly. The sneaky one he had taken of Andrew striding towards goal; the ones he had been cornered into by Nicky on the drive to Columbia; the ones from press releases and online articles. He nearly bypassed them all, just needing to fill the space between taking and waiting and dying.

A number flashed up on his screen. It was named but Neil didn’t see it. He couldn’t feel his fingers.

He picked up.

“Neil, get dressed. We’re going out. Team outing.” That was Nicky’s voice.

“Nicky,” Neil answered, voice slurred, tongue too big in his mouth. “Legs—gone.” His eyes drooped closed.

“How drunk are you?” Nicky laughed but Neil suddenly couldn’t breathe and he gasped for breath. Nicky’s laughter died. “Neil? Neil. Fuck, Neil. Neil, answer me.”

The phone fell from his grasp, the room spinning wilder than it ever had when he was drunk, and Neil collapsed forward, surrendering to the heaviness of his eyelids closing.

*

Fingers snarled not so gently in the back of his collar, hauling him up. He felt his head hang forward limply. For a second, he knew he was dead and this was a weird afterlife. An afterlife that smelt of cologne and hairspray.

Then fingers were in his mouth, intrusive, pressing his tongue until he gagged, until he couldn’t resist how his body needed to throw up at the gag trigger. The fingers yanked back as Neil vomited into a bucket that had been placed at the foot of his bed. In it, he saw the medication. Undigested. Redundant.

Another wasted attempt.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” Nicky swore. “When I thought about putting my fingers in another boy’s mouth, I did not think it would be for this.”

A slap came, short and alerting, on his cheek. Neil winced, groaning. There was another voice, something floaty, something that Neil subconsciously reached for, snagging onto, clinging to it like a lifeline.

Neil loved that voice.

Neil wanted to stay for that voice but hadn’t wanted to hurt the boy it belonged to.

He tried to turn his head but fingers kept him in place, holding the back of his skull. He wanted to shove off any touch, wanted to snarl to not be touched, wanted to bite the fingers off that had gotten into his mouth to make him get rid of the poison he had taken.

“Talk to him.” The command was sharp and suddenly the voice had a face and it was right in Neil’s eyeline.

Blonde blurred in his vision, black bands on pale arms, tired dark circles beneath narrowed eyes.

“Andrew,” Neil murmured, then fell forward into Andrew’s lap, fingers curling around his t-shirt. Beneath him, the other boy stiffened but he wasn’t shoved off.

“You can go,” Andrew said, his voice shut down, emotionless.

"But—”

“Go.”

“The next time you ask me to invade his mouth, I’ll refuse. Do it yourself next time.”

Hands wrapped around Neil’s shoulders, fingers sliding into his long hair. A mouth pressed to the side of his head. “There won’t be a next time,” Andrew whispered against his hair. “Stay with me, Neil.”

Neil did, but he couldn’t speak. But whether Andrew knew that or not, he carried on talking. His voice brought Neil back from a ledge he hadn’t known he wanted to be saved from. It coaxed him to a safer place. If he hadn’t pushed Andrew away he would have been fine. He would have been okay.

Better.

Healing.

But Andrew reminded him of what he had lost in his team. How could he continue to look at him when all he thought about was that loss?

Andrew was telling him about a sunny day from when he was in juvenile detention. He rarely spoke about that time of his life, and Neil suspected he was only doing so now because Neil was half-lucid and floating several dimensions away from Andrew’s reality. He was telling him about how sunny that day had been, compared to that night, when Andrew had lain awake listening to the arguments of another prisoner and their handler.

Whilst he talked, he stroked through Neil’s hair. And whilst he did that Neil cried.

Neil never cried—but he cried now, and he cried hard, into Andrew’s lap, and he wondered how many more layers of himself he would have to peel back until he was able to not exist. How much longer would it continue? He didn’t want to hurt anymore but death seemed imminent on dodging him.

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice was a soft caress. “I can’t lose you, you hear me? I can’t lose you. If you go… If you go, Neil, there will be nothing for me. Nothing.” Hands slid through Neil’s. “Stay. Hold on. If you won’t fight for yourself then fight for me. Know how hard it is for me to ask that. Listen to me. You cannot give up. You have to pull back from this if only to let me call you a junkie for real when these scars have healed.”

His fingers squeezed around Neil’s. The press of fingertips into his knuckles hurt but he didn’t complain. “Fight for me, Neil. Stay for me.”

For the first time in over two months, Neil didn’t surrender to the ache. He fought. He fought with every still-burning inch he had, and he never once let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! i hope you liked the update!! things are looking B R I G H T E R!! i updated my instagram recently with some neil cosplays! go check them out if you like that sort of thing @itslameshane
> 
> Someone left a comment about the timeline! Honestly this fic started out as a vent place for some of my own experiences, and I put the energy into Neil. So this is a different timeline, some snippets of canon events (like Kevin being injured) have been taken and dropped in! 
> 
> thank you all for reading and commenting! it honestly brightens my days x


	3. See Yourself

Every day for the next month, Andrew gave Neil a song to listen to. It was a small gesture, a thing to get Neil through each day so he had something to make a note of, to look forward to. By the end of the month he had a playlist of songs Andrew said reminded him of Neil, or songs he just wanted Neil to listen to.

Each night, Neil lay awake and told himself: _you cannot attempt suicide until you’ve listened to this song in a row for five times._ Each song was three-to-four minutes. That gave him a maximum of fifteen or twenty minutes to distract his brain. By the time the song ended for the fifth time, he was usually too full of thinking softer thoughts about Andrew that he couldn’t think of anything else.

It kept him alive for the next month.

And then one day he was sat in his room when his phone vibrated. It was Wymack, hailing him to his office for the first time in a long time. He had checked in on Neil. Sometimes he let his coach dig a little into his mind space, ask how he was, ask how his arm was—better—. But, ultimately, Neil shut him out like he had shut everyone else out. But this was a summons. It was a _I need to have a meeting with you. My office, Monday 11am._

Instantly, anxiety bolted through Neil, demanding and sharp. His hands trembled where his fingers gripped his phone. It had been so long. Wymack was going to ask for his uniform back—he just knew it. He would ask for everything, giving Neil nothing but memories to remember the team by. His breathing shortened, chest heaving with gasps, as he clicked his phone off. He couldn’t answer, couldn’t acknowledge.

He couldn’t give his uniform back. He had earned it. He had played with everything he had day after day. Giving up his uniform meant giving up the Foxes—and he wasn’t ready to do that.

Without realising it, he had his phone to his ear and he wasn’t even aware he had dialled Andrew’s number until he answered. His voice was rough, like Neil had woken him from sleep.

“Neil?” Andrew’s voice was sharp when Neil didn’t speak. It was alert with panic. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he rushed to say. Then paused. “Can you come over? Or I can come to you? I—”

“Give me five minutes.”

Then Andrew hung up and Neil was left pacing the room until he heard the beep of a car outside. Neil couldn’t remember the last time someone had taken him out of his room, driven him somewhere, and let him breathe. There had been the time with Nicky but that had been to pick Neil up after the hospital. This time was different. It was Andrew knowing Neil’s tethers, knowing when he had reached the end.

He slid into Andrew’s car. “Just drive—please?”

Andrew didn’t ask where to. He didn’t ask what had happened. He just threw the stick into _Drive_ and sped away. On the centre console, Neil rested his arm and tapped out an absentminded beat. Anxiety still thrummed through him but he managed to keep it at bay as long as he kept Andrew in his peripheral. When they had first started all of this he had been a distraction. That’s what he had told himself each time his breath was stolen by kisses that he couldn’t work out the meaning of.

But now it meant more. It felt different. It wasn’t just a hand slid under his shirt or his lips on Andrew’s neck. Now it felt like they had crossed a crumbling bridge but still made it to the other side. Yet what they had crossed Neil didn’t know. It had been tentative and slow. Even on safer ground they still looked around and wondered where they were and how they got there.

But with the pain of his situation fading behind them and Andrew’s arm shifting closer on the console, Neil wondered if he could ever feel whole with just that. No Exy—just Andrew. Just Andrew there, his arm against Neil’s, pressed together, pinkie fingers shy of linking.

He broke the silence. “Wymack wants a meeting with me.”

“I know,” Andrew said. “You assumed I wouldn’t?”

Neil shrugged. “You listen to everything else when people don’t think you are. I shouldn’t assume anymore.”

Andrew cracked a grin. “No, you shouldn’t. Monday, at eleven.”

Neil nodded. “Do you know what it’s about?”

He shook his head. “Before you were recruited we barely knew that’s where we were headed until we got to the airport. Wymack keeps his secrets when he wants to—when he feels it benefits the person most involved. And, of course, he knew that if he told me I would go right to you.”

Neil shouldn’t have been shocked by Andrew knowing he needed to know the meaning behind the meeting. Andrew had played hide and seek with words so much before it was hard not to assume he still would. Perhaps it was better neither of them knew so he wouldn’t have to guess what Andrew would do with the truth.

“I think I’m ready,” Neil said, sighing. “If he wants my uniform back then I should be ready to surrender it.”

“That’s not what it’s about.”

“If you know better, please enlighten me,” he muttered.

“I don’t. I just know it won’t be that. He’s not retiring your number yet.”

Y _et._

“Kevin or Dan would know about it if he was,” Andrew stated. “And he hasn’t recruited new players. There are facts, Neil, if you care to look past your own pain to see them.”

“Fact: I’m injured. Fact: I haven’t played in over two months. Fact: I was never the best player anyway. Fact—”

He was cut off with a gasp because Andrew slammed on the break, yanking the wheel so they pulled over on the side of the road. He gripped the wheel until his forearms were tight and his knuckles were white.

He reached out and grasped Neil’s chin, forcing him to look at him. “How many more times will you make me listen to you degrade yourself, belittle yourself, put yourself down like you mean nothing to anyone? Do you like doing that? Do you think it makes you above anyone else to judge you? You put yourself down to accept some false reality before anyone else can?”

Neil didn’t know what to say. Andrew’s fingers dug into his cheek but he wouldn’t dare look away.

“Neil, we didn’t win any games because of you, true. But we also didn’t win them because of me, or because of Kevin, or Renee, or Allison. Or any of the Foxes individually. We won because we, as you and Kevin so often spout, are a team. It took me a long time to show I enjoy Exy, that I could play better than I let anyone believe, and that was because of you and Kevin. You asked me to play my best so I did. I honoured that for you.” Andrew’s gaze burned into Neil’s as he leaned closer. “So I am asking you now to consider yourself at the level you see others: as some idolised Fox. As someone worthy of going into Wymack’s office on Monday to get good news. Would you think the worst for Nicky, or for Dan, or Matt?”

Struggling, Neil shook his head.

“Then do the same for yourself. See yourself as we see you—as I see you.”

Breathless, Neil asked, “And how is that?”

Andrew held his face, saying nothing.

“How do you see me?” Neil asked. In a lower voice he said, “What are we?”

Andrew responded only with a hard kiss, his fingers still holding Neil’s face right where he wanted it. His teeth caught Neil’s lip, and he made a noise in the back of his throat that had Andrew straining over the console to reach him.

“You are a Fox,” Andrew muttered the words against Neil’s lips, before swallowing any reply he might have given with a swipe of his tongue. Neil’s thoughts flew out of his head as he closed his eyes. Kissing Andrew had the same adrenaline high that running down an Exy court had, to the sound of cheers, to the pressure of a victory.

He never wanted it to end.

Andrew kissed him like he could say what they were with only their mouths, with only fingers tangled in shirts and hair pulled lightly. Whilst Neil wanted to hear it verbally, he knew Andrew would say it when he was ready. For now he trusted Neil with kisses and touches—that was more than enough to make Neil forget how awful the past two months had been.

Andrew’s lips were wonderfully red and swollen by the time he pulled away, his eyes hooded as he looked at Neil. There was a darker patch of red in the centre of his lower lip where Neil had accidentally caught it with his teeth. Andrew had only made a small noise, a noise he so rarely allowed to be heard. It had delighted Neil but whenever he had tried to coax it again, Andrew had shoved him back with a growl and a harder kiss that he controlled.

“What are you?” he asked.

“A Fox,” Neil murmured. The words didn’t ring hollowly like they had these past two months of reminding himself that. Then, the reminder had felt feeble, a boy kidding himself. But with Andrew’s eyes on him and his kisses an echo on Neil’s lips, they felt truer.

He had to believe he was still a Fox. Because any other option for the meeting was unbearable.

*

Sunday night was unbearable. At three in the morning he was still tossing and turning in Andrew’s arms. He reached across the bed to slip his fingers between his. Andrew’s eyes fluttered open in the darkness.

“Go to sleep, Neil.”

“I’m trying.”

“You won’t fall asleep holding my hand.”

Neil rolled his eyes and turned to back into Andrew once more. Their hands never left each other. “I’m not consciously anxious but my body won’t calm down.”

“I don’t need to you about your body and calming down. Not at three in the morning, anyway.”

Neil groaned. “You know what I mean. I’m— _alight_ with it. My skin feels electric.”

Andrew pressed his mouth to Neil’s shoulder. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

But Neil didn’t know. He had come to calmer terms with the meeting over the past few days but his body reactions weren’t on the same page. Andrew’s mouth continued to map a path over his shoulders, tongue flicking out once or twice against the nape of Neil’s neck, and his eyes closed gently. Whether he meant to calm Neil or distract him, he didn’t know, but he welcomed the touches.

Andrew fell asleep with his lips pressed to Neil’s shoulder blade.

Neil eventually fell asleep with Andrew’s hand pressed to his stomach.

When he woke to an alarm, Andrew was gone. Neil tried not to worry further at the absence or wish he hadn’t been left alone as he dressed like he was in a trance. He was tired and anxious. His brain didn’t feel on the right page to have his future determined. Meeting his reflection in the mirror, he steeled his nerves and inhaled deeply.

This was the answer he had needed for the past two months. He could do this. He had to do this. He had no other choice.

He flexed his fingers into fists and pushed off from the mirror, leaving his room alone on shaky legs.

*

Wymack took his sweet time brewing coffee, offering Neil a cup, which he gratefully took. He made nice conversation with Neil but there was a buzz in him that neither could ignore. Eventually he led Neil to his desk and gestured for him to take a seat.

“How are you doing?”

Neil just stared at him.

“Neil?”

He continued to stare. Wymack knew how he had been doing. He had checked in every week since Nicky had told him about the overdose. He was wasting time, stalling. People only stalled doing the things they didn’t want to do.

Neil’s heart beat a tornado. “Please just get this done with.” There was unbearable pain in his voice, hurt dragging him down to a place where he needed to dissociate or he would crumble at the desk.

Wymack clasped his hands together in front of him. “Neil, I have some options for you.”

 _Options_.

_Options._

The word rose like an awful hope in his chest. If he had to give his uniform back it would be an immediate demand. There would be no other option. He tried not to let his desperation show.

“Okay,” he said, voice tight.

“I’m not having another intoxicated Fox on the team,” he warned. “We went through enough with Andrew. So any of these options come with the condition that you clean yourself up. We’ll help you to a degree that you’ll accept but you do not step foot near your uniform, near a racquet, unless you’re totally sober.”

It was hope. It was rising, it was a lifeline. It was—

“Agreed,” Neil breathed.

“The first option is you actually go to the physiotherapy appointments you were meant to go to weeks ago. You gain mobility back in your arm and in the meantime learn to use the other hand. Kevin did, and I’ve conferred with Abby and a team of medics. They have no reason to believe you shouldn’t be able to do the same.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” Neil demanded.

“Because we couldn’t tell the recovery stages initially. I couldn’t give you hope back then. But now I can. Now that’s an option. For you to play again.”

It was like Neil had been walking in a tunnel that was one foot wide and one foot tall, in complete darkness. Wymack’s words were a crack of light ahead. Neil ran to it.

“The second option is you become a coach. You let me teach you, you enrol in a programme to learn officially.”

“And the third?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Tell me.”

“You go on the cheer squad. They need muscle.”

And Neil hadn’t laughed so hard in so, so long. Neil Josten: a cheerleader? Oh _God._ He tried to imagine himself in a masculine uniform to mirror Katelyn’s flared skirts, waving pompoms and cheering with a higher-pitched voice.

He tried to imagine himself cheering for a team he wasn’t part of, watching a court he couldn’t play on. He had known what option to take the second it came from Wymack’s mouth.

“The first,” he said.

“Wait, take some time. Twenty four hours at least.”

“I already know.”

“Neil.” Wymack looked at him sternly. “Neil, this is serious. Your arm isn’t fully healed. Your shoulder is rigid, I can see that. It’s no easy feat to learn to play with your other hand. You’re my fastest player and switching hands could jeopardise that. With that option you’re looking at another stretch of time until you return to the court.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll learn. I’ll go to every appointment, do every exercise, run drills with Kevin. I’ll do it. You know I will. There is no other option.”

“Regardless, I want you to walk away from this office and not let me hear from you for at least twenty four hours. Then text me with your answer. Got it?”

Neil felt breathless, like all the weight that had dragged him down was evaporating, filled with the news that he had these options. He wasn’t done. He was going back. Hope filled his chest, so tight he thought he would cry there and then, at the desk. He wanted to scream, lunge to hug Wymack, to find words to say how much this meant to him.

“And Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some fucking sleep.”

Neil grinned as he left the office. He smiled for the first time in a long time.

He was going back.

Back to his team.

Back to being a Fox.

Back to having a place and purpose and a life.

Neil Josten was going back.


End file.
